How should a connection between Jewish identity and affinity with Israel be treated by anti-discrimination law?

Research shows that more than 90% of British Jews feel the State of Israel plays a significant role in their Jewish identity. This project explores how that connection is treated in UK anti-discrimination law. It responds to a series of legal decisions regarding claims of Israel-related anti-Jewish discrimination which have come to radically opposed conclusions.

Confusion about the protection Jewish people can expect from equality law has exacerbated a growing unease amongst Jewish communities in the UK. By combining qualitative doctrinal legal research with methodologies from political philosophy, the project will: a) show how conflicting conceptions of Jewish affinity with Israel shape these disputes;

b) show how an anti-discrimination law based on "protected characteristics" can only understand Jewish affinity with Israel as an individual voluntarist political commitment. This hinders recognition of why Jewish people may feel discriminated due to an attachment to Israel, in a way that goes beyond political disagreement;

c) explore the historical origins and contemporary significance of a "politically existential" relation between Jewish identity and Israel. Here, Israel's existence is understood to provide a vital guarantee of protections for Jews in the wake of the failure of universalist rights models during the Holocaust.

The project will consider whether these limitations within current anti-discrimination law actively contribute to anti-Jewish discrimination by framing existential conceptions of Jewish attachment to Israel as deceptively disguised voluntarist commitments.

The result will be a set of concrete guidelines explaining how public decisionmakers can apply the "politically existential" conception to achieve fairer and more effective outcomes than those achieved by the current "protected characteristics" model.